‘American Empire’ and unchecked privilege

The Fall of the American Empire Rated: R. 127 minutes.) 6 1⁄2 (out of five )

Denys Arcand’s “The Fall of the American Empire” is both a noirish crime film and a commentary on class and racial disparity, and is on pretty shaky ground on both fronts.

It’s about a self-pitying delivery guy with a Ph.D in philosophy who runs across a crime in progress and picks up two bags of money, apparently worth millions. With both cops and bad guys on his trail, he teams with a high-end prostitute and an expert at money laundering who just did a stretch in prison to keep the money — and perhaps have it do some social good in the process.

Unfortunately, “The Fall of the American Empire” has left out a fourth element: energy. The film is so stagnant that the 127-minute running time feels longer then “Avengers: Endgame.” It’s one of those movies where everyone delivers their lines in an understated way — no one gets much excited about anything, no one raises a voice, argues with each other or gets violent, even when lives are threatened and cops are involved.

It’s as if everyone knows they’re in a movie.

Pierre-Paul (Alexandre Landry) is the self-pitying schlub. He is white, privileged, has a nice but modest apartment in suburban Montreal and complains incessantly about how he’ll never get ahead because he comes from a family that has been working-class for generations (he is a delivery guy because, as he explains, it pays better than being a philosophy professor).

The first thing he does with his bag of money is hire the most expensive prostitute in Montreal, which costs him two months his usual delivery pay. His reason, in part: she is named Aspasie (Maripier Morin) after a lover of Socrates, and has a quote from Racine on her website. We now have a clue as to why he’ll never get anywhere: It’s in your head, stupid, not your lineage.

Pierre-Paul becomes aware of the money launderer, Sylvain (Rémy Girard), because he is a famous criminal known as “The Brain,” and his release gets TV coverage. Why Sylvain, who says he is trying to go straight, gets involved with a mistakeprone newbie like Pierre is anyone’s guess. Especially with two detectives (Maxim Roy, Louis Morissette) on Pierre’s tail, and the crime boss who was victimized looking for who has his loot.

OK, the system favors white privileged people against working-class people who can never get ahead, and people of color are especially disproportionally affected. Got it.

But when no main character in the film is a person of color, or even a person of desperate economic need, why even try to make this muddled point? Add that Pierre-Paul is a just a selfpitying jerk and the whole film becomes an exercise in white privilege, the very thing it is railing against.

So politics and social commentary aside, we are left with a crime film. One that isn’t very suspenseful or particularly clever.